We decided to take a tour bus from Cuzco to Puno, as none of us fancied just sitting in a bus for 9 hours – after 4 days of walking we were worried we might never get up again! The added bonus was we got to see a couple of interesting sites en route, including the resplendent church of the village of Andahuaylillas and the remains of the biggest Inca temple in the whole of the Empire. The remains were pretty sizeable so I imagine in all its glory it would have been incredible. However, the main thing that will stay with me from the trip is the inane conversation which took place between 3 young American girls sitting in front of us on the bus. I knew things were going to be bad when the opening gambit involved a discussion about which colour of bandanna they were each going to wear on their 'super-fun' trip. I gather they hadn't seen each other for a while, as from there we were updated on each of their relationships IN GRAPHIC DETAIL. For those interested, Brian wasn't going to get ANY for at least 3 days (after flying halfway around the world to see his girlfriend). I opted for putting in earplugs when the talk turned to 'scrapbooking.' Apparently when one of them broke up with her last boyfriend she had to ask for the scrapbook she had made him back – because too much time and effort had gone into it to simply lose it. “WHAT a loseeeer.”

The port of Puno is the jumping off point for the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca (the Lake is jointly owned by Peru and Bolivia). It's also the highest point we've stayed at during our journey so far, at some 3600m. We arrived craving pizza after 4 days of Peruvian cuisine, and luckily we found a restaurant that served fantastic pizza – with the added bonus that it was also built to look like a medieval castle. The pizza was so good we went back on our second evening there. Puno is pretty touristy, set up to cater to the needs of western tourists (hence the pizza). However, despite this, we did see more indigenous people than anywhere else so far – Quechua women in enormous skirts and tiny bowler hats perched precariously on their heads. We have no idea how or why this developed as a fashion, but it seems to have caught on.

The main purpose of our stay here was a trip to the Lake, and so bright and early the next morning we were picked up for a full day tour of the islands. We learned that Titicaca is often incorrectly described by tour guides as 'The World's Highest Navigable Lake', but it is pretty high, at 3820m, and it is enormous (more than 230km long and 97km wide). In fact, I started to forget we were on a lake at all: it could easily have been the sea.

Our trip started with a trip to the island of Uros, part of the Floating Islands, which are made entirely from mud and reeds, anchored to the bottom of the lake with ropes. New reeds have to be added every few months in order to keep them above water. There are about 40 of these islands in total. They were originally created by local Quechua people fleeing Spanish conquistadors and a life of slavery working in the Bolivian silver mines. Some people still live on the islands, although numbers are declining as younger generations are lured by the better quality of life offered in the cities.

The islands were quite fascinating to see, and frightening to walk on – most were less than 10m end to end. To get between the islands we were treated to a ride in a boat made entirely from reeds. It was all incredibly touristy – we were serenaded by the 4 woman who lived on one of the islands we visited, in several different languages. We thought this was charming until we pulled up at the next island, and saw the women there singing the exact same songs in the exact same order to another group of tourists!

From there it was on to Taquile, the second biggest island on Titicaca. Whilst it is the island of choice for day-trippers, it's incredibly poor. Farming is the main industry, but I don't think they do too well out of it. Tourism brings much-needed additional revenue, but otherwise the locals have little contact with the outside world. The walk up to the main square at the top of the island was a bit of a struggle as our legs were still sore after the Inca Trail, but we were rewarded with delicious trout for lunch...and then a walk down to the other side to pick up our boat. En route we passed many children selling woven friendship bracelets and llama finger puppets. We had half thought about doing a 'homestay' on one of these islands, but in the end we were very glad to be heading back to our comfortable hotel, and another pizza.

We arrived into Cuzco, bleary-eyed, just after 6:30, following our overnight bus journey from Arequipa. We headed straight for our awesome hotel, El Balcon, which we were staying in courtesy of Will and Sophie, who'd paid for our stay as an engagement present (thanks again guys!). The hotel boasted spectacular views over the red rooftops of the city – it put me in mind more of an Italian village than central Peru! I was expecting Cuzco to be a one-street tourist trap, existing only to sell tours and alpaca hats to tourists passing through en route to Machu Picchu, but it quickly became apparent that I was very wrong. Cuzco is in fact the oldest continually inhabited city in South America, and was the most important city of the Inca Empire, where most of the civilisation's rituals and ceremonies were held. Little wonder then that the Spanish felt it necessary to make their mark during the conquest.

We just had time for a quick shower and breakfast before Pete and Claire arrived from Lima. It was so fantastic to see them and catch up on all the news from home – James and I got a bit carried away, and ended up talking at them for an hour before we realised they hadn't even yet had time to check in to their rooms!

Cuzco stands at 3400m above sea level, and so we'd planned in a couple of fairly restful days to adjust to the altitude before commencing our Inca Trail trek. We started with a leisurely lunch in a cafe overlooking the Plaza de Armas, watching the locals pass by in the sunshine. Eventually we decided that we'd probably better make at least an attempt at sightseeing, and so we headed across the plaza to the cathedral, which turned out to be three churches in one! We admired a statue of Black Jesus (no really!), and choir stalls featuring women with potatoes for stomachs, along with another painting of the Last Supper with guinea pig on the menu. It's been very interesting to see the combination of the traditional Andean religion and Spanish Catholicism – it seems that the Spaniards were happy for some local beliefs about Pachamama (Mother Earth) and other animistic rituals to continue, provided people fit them into the framework of the Catholic faith. At any rate, they seemed to achieve a compromise fairly well – the Virgin Mary is often pictured wearing an enormous dome-shaped dress, a subtle hint towards the traditional mountain shape of Pachamama.

We also paid a visit to Qorikancha, an ancient Inca site converted by the Spaniards into the Church of Santa Domingo. The site was originally the central temple of the whole of Incan empire, created to worship the Gods of the Sun and of the Moon. When the Spanish arrived, they demolished the most important parts of it and rebuilt a Catholic church on the same site, but left other, smaller temples, to be used as dressing and preparation rooms by resident priests. Originally the outer Inca walls would have been covered in gold – what an amazing site must have greeted the Spanish on their arrival. The surviving structures today are still pretty spectacular - a hybrid Inca/Spanish site which dominates a whole quarter of the city. We found the famous Inca stonework particularly impressive – perfectly tessellating blocks of stone that have withstood hundreds of years of earthquakes whilst the modern buildings around them crashed to the ground. Our tour of the site was conducted by a Spanish woman with heavily accented English – she kept referring to 'Hypotetica' who we all thought was an ancient Inca King, until we realised she was actually saying hypothetically!

The Colca Canyon is the world's second deepest canyon. In parts it's over 3000m deep, deeper than the Grand Canyon and second – by only 163m – to its less accessible neighbour, the Cotahuasi Canyon. The fertile soil somehow clinging to its less extreme upper reaches also made it the bread basket of the Incan Empire. By carving thousands of terraces into the sides of the valley, they were able to grow grain and fruits which were then transported by llama to feed the masses in important centres like Cusco.

To get to Colca Canyon we took a two day trip up out of Arequipa, over the high Andean plains of the Altiplano before descending down to Chivay, the capital of the region which lies at the head of the canyon's river valley.

The road north west out of Arequipa passes underneath the dormant volcanic mountain Chachani. A massive shanty town has been built at its base, thousands of houses all built from rock hacked from the lava fields that Chachani laid down hundreds of years ago. The town's inhabitants are a mixture of economic migrants from the last 10 years and earlier political migrants who were escaping the machinations of the Shining Path movement in the 80s. Driving through we saw that the upcoming Peruvian elections definitely hadn't missed the shanty towns out. Giant slogans in primary colours were daubed all over the walls of roadside houses.

Once we left the shanty towns, the road wound further around the base of Chachani cutting directly through big rollers of solidified lava, and slowly up towards the altiplano. The plants of the Andes are specifically adapted to certain elevations, so you drive through bands of different coloured grasses, desert and scrub until you find yourself on the high plains at last.

Once there you're no longer alone. Vicuñas, Alpacas, Llamas (and even the odd migrating Flamingo) all call the Altiplano home. It can be hard to tell these cameloids apart, so here's a bluffer's guide:

1. Vicuñas. Deer like creature with a loping run, a long neck and fine fur. They only come in one colour, a sandy brown. Vicuñas cannot be bred in captivity as the males are too violent. This is a shame as their fur is finer than even human hair, and one jumper made from vicuña wool currently retails for around $1500.

2. Llamas. The favourite animal of the Incas. Used for food, transporting goods, for clothing, for candles and for sacrifices. The llama is much heavier-looking than the vicuña and has coarser wool. They come in many different colours, from black to brown to piebald. Llamas are known for their strong personality – load one with more than 30kg and it will simply lie down and refuse to move. Kick it in the hope of making it get up and it will spit at you.

3. Alpacas. Descended from wild vicuñas, these now look more similar to the llama, but have a smaller head, narrower body and finer wool. Alpacas tend to have a more consistent colour than llamas. Alpacas can also spit, but tend not to.

The altiplano is around 4200 to 4900m asl. To combat the altitude our tour guide handed us all a wadge of coca leaves to chew on the bus. The raw ingredient of cocaine, unfortunately there's only about 1mg of the opiate per 10kg of leaves. They do have about 14 other active ingredients though, all of which help alleviate the effects of altitude sickness. Interestingly, one of these chemicals is a mild anaesthetic so as you chew your mouth goes slightly numb. This had the unfortunate side-effect of making me dribble out of the side of my mouth like I'd just come back from the dentist. Considering that the leaves turn your teeth and spit a lovely dark green colour too, this may preclude my enjoying coca amongst polite company.

The end of our bus ride was the town of Chivay which sits near the start of the canyon. Shortly after arriving we went for a hike to see the actual 'colcas' which give the canyon its name. Colca means storage house in the Incan Quechua dialect. The colcas of the canyon are unique in that they were built into the walls of the canyon itself. This made them very difficult to get to, but had the benefit of keeping them in wind and shade for most of the day. Down in the canyon their temperature stayed sub zero even in the height of the Andean summer – perfect for storing fruit, meat and grain.

We hadn't really driven all day just to see a 15th century refrigerators though. The main reason people come to Colca is to see the condors. Further down the valley where the canyon reaches its deepest, strong thermals form in the mornings and evenings which are ideal for the lazy cruising flight of these birds. Many nest in the canyon walls and soar around the area in the morning before heading further down the valley (even as far as the coast – over 100km away!) to hunt.

We woke up early to drive out to Cruz del Condor for 8am when the young condors are most active. We were lucky. After 3 hours of gravel roads, we arrived to find 3 young condors soaring around the canyon which were soon joined by several more. They were a complete joy to watch. In the hour we stayed they wheeled around us, diving and swerving seemingly for the sheer fun of it. The younger birds were more curious, and occasionally one would do a 'fly-by' just over the tops of our heads, eliciting shrieks of delight and fear from the tourists.

The only thing taking the edge off the experience was our finding out, a few minutes prior to seeing them, that condors are actually vultures and exclusively eat dead things. And not newly dead things either. Once they spot a dead animal, they wait for about two weeks until it's semi-decomposed before eating it. This is not the noble creature I learned about from Mysterious Cities of Gold. Speaking of which...

We arrived in Arequipa after a 10 hour Cruz del Sur bus journey from Nazca. Both exhausted, it was a surprise and a delight to find we appeared to be staying in one of the nicest hostels of the entire trip. This was confirmed the next morning at breakfast, when we had a choice of four different cereals, three different yoghurts, delicious bread, cheese and ham. I am not ashamed to admit I was close to tears: amazing the things you miss when travelling, but cereal is pretty much at the top of my food list. I made sure I had 2 bowls every morning to satisfy my cravings.

Arequipa is a beautiful city, famous for its 'sillar' buildings – a blindingly white volcanic rock – and is a World Heritage Site by dint of this fact alone. We started our exploration in the Plaza de Armas, which seems to serve as a meeting and hanging out point for the local population – it was buzzing early on a Friday morning, and by the afternoon you could barely move for people. The square is dominated by the cathedral, which was decimated by an earthquake in the 19th century and has since been completely rebuilt in neo-classical style. It's pretty stunning, although the views from the rooftop were even more impressive. Arequipa is surrounded by 3 volcanos – El Misti (5822m), Chachani (6075m) and Pichu Pichu (5571m) and the 360 degree vista was pretty spectacular.

Our next stop was the Museo Santury (sic), home to a 500 year old mummy called Juanita, found by an American near the top of Mount Ampato (6288m) in the mid-1990s. Juanita was a 15 year old girl offered as a sacrifice to the gods by the Incas, which apparently was a fairly common ritual towards the end of the empire's reign (prior to that, only animals and other precious artifacts were made as offerings – things were clearly getting pretty desperate at that point!). It sounds pretty brutal – she was walked 580km from Cuzco to the mountain, fed copious amounts of alcohol and then killed by a blow to the head, before being left on the mountainside – but in fact being selected as a sacrifice was a very great honour, and rich Inca families petitioned for their children to be chosen. As a result of the icy conditions Juanita was left in, her body has been almost perfectly preserved, including her hair and skin, although she has to be kept in what is essentially in a freezer to avoid further decomposition. Seeing her tiny body (she was about 4 foot 10) was a pretty creepy sight, and reminded me just how little we know about the Inca civilisation and their traditions.

We spent the afternoon at the Monasterio Santa Catalina, a Dominican nunnery founded in 1579 which was designed to be a 'city within a city.' We were a little disappointed that the stories of saucy nuns that lured us in were completely unfounded, but were nevertheless blown away by the place. It was vast, with 5 'streets,' a cemetery, a laundry and lovely gardens. In its heyday, there were some 175 nuns in residence, and it is still in operation today, albeit on a much smaller scale – there are about 40 nuns living on site, ranging in age from 18 to 90! Traditionally the second daughters from rich Spanish conquistador families were sent to the nunnery at the age of 12, where they would remain until they died – parents believed that they would be more likely to go to heaven if they had a religious daughter! The girls were kept in solitary confinement for four years, speaking only to the nuns who taught them to read and write, before they were allowed to enter the convent proper.

But it wasn't all bad. The families usually paid for the daughters to have enormous rooms filled with the finest furniture and china, and each nun could have up to 5 maids who prepared their meals (each nun had an individual kitchen) and kept house for them. Wandering through the gorgeous complex, all brightly painted red and blue walls and geraniums everywhere, it was fascinating to see the degree of individuality between the different rooms – and also the discrepancy between the financial circumstances of different nuns, visible from whether the doors to their rooms were carved or plain. Local bishops tried several times to make the nuns live a more ascetic life, but when they finally succeeded, forcing the nuns to adopt communal living patterns, over half of the nuns opted to quit the convent altogether!

Today's nuns are all there voluntarily, and have slightly more access to the outside world than their predecessors. They have microwaves and the internet, receive news every Sunday and can leave the complex to go to the doctor, the dentist or to visit sick relatives – but only accompanied by another nun, just in case they find themselves tempted by the evils of the outside world. It must be a beautiful place to live, but definitely not for me!

The Nazca Lines are something of a mystery. Discovered in 1911, they are believed to be the work of a pre-Inca tribe, although no one is quite sure what they were designed for: a stellar constellation map, a tribute to the gods, or a water divining system? Whatever they are, we were keen to see them for ourselves.

This was going to be our first proper experience of the Peruvian tourist industry, and we had been warned that their approach to tourism was a little more relaxed than we've been used to. Stories of long waits and bun fights for planes were not uncommon. And so we awaited our pick-up prepared, armed with lots of water and reading material. Our guide Oscar greeted us with the news that as a result of early-morning fog, flights were already running 2 hours behind – putting our scheduled 11am flight back to 1pm. He insisted we should still head to the airport, just in case things sped up again.

At the dedicated Nazca Lines airstrip, we were greeted with a waiting room full of tourists – more than we'd seen since our arrival in South America. There were an astounding number of Japanese tourists, all of whom had opted to take an hour long overflight, rather than the standard 30 mins. This delayed our flight further – estimated flight time now 2pm.

We watched the American documentary called “Digging for the Past” or something equally trite, and laughed a lot as the Indiana Jones wannabe presenter tried to shed some light on the reason for the Lines' existence. Miraculously, he also 'discovered' some new lines on his very first flight! However, having seen it 3 times through, we were starting to get a little bored. It was at this point our guide took pity on us and drove us back into the town centre to get some lunch. Estimated flight time now: 3pm.

We returned to the airstrip at 2.30, by which point I was getting pretty nervous about our flight – never a fan of small planes, our experience in New Zealand had made me question getting in another small plane at all. And yet still we waited, another 2 hours to be precise. By the time our flight was called, at about 4.30pm, I was a sweating, nervous mess. Gripping James's hand tightly as we sat in the plane, I tried to quash my fears and shut my eyes as we taxied the runway.

And then we were in the air! The next 25 mins passed in a blur as our pilot careened first one way and then the other, allowing both sides of the aircraft a good view of each set of lines in turn. This was a good idea in theory, but the sharp jerky movements of the plane soon made us both feel pretty nauseous. With each call of “Left side! Right side!” I found myself desperately seeking out the horizon – no mean feat when the plane spent most of the flight at a 45 degree angle.

All that said, the Lines were pretty awesome to see, and an overflight really is the only way to see them. It was amazing to suddenly be flying over all these intricate lines, carved into the sand of the desert. My favourites were spider, which was incredibly detailed, and hummingbird, which was enormous. Still it was baffling to consider why these lines were here at all – the German archeologist Maria Reiche spent her whole life trying to unlock the mystery of the lines. Flying over them, I began to see why.

And then almost before we knew it, we were heading back for the runway, for an incredibly smooth landing. Glad as we were to have seen them, my overwhelming feeling being back on solid ground was relief. And a little nausea.

...he had a point. Ica is well and truly off the gringo trail. It's a tumbledown town consisting of a busy central plaza and a warren of narrow cobbled and dirt streets, all of which are jammed with tiny Daewoo Tico taxis – all of which have cracked windscreens – and pimped tuk-tuks with fake Nike-branded canopies and UV downlights.

Aside from soaking up some of this bizarro authentic Peruvian culture, there are only three reasons to visit.
1. It has the best pre-Incan musuem in Peru
2. It's near to, but is not Huacachina, an oasis town / tourist black hole nestled inside giant sand dunes
3. There surrounding countryside is famous for its Pisco distilleries

Our first day in town we took a taxi to the musuem. The taxi was a Daewoo Tico, of course, but is worth mentioning for its unique interior decoration. It had sun visors on both the top and bottom of the windscreen, reducing visibility to a 6 inch strip through which its driver glanced distractedly from time to time, and every square inch of the rest of the interior was covered with an array of interesting stickers: amongst the collage we spotted Mickey Mouse, Homer Simpson and Jesus.

Tough for any museum to follow that ride. When we arrived and paid to get in, they had to turn on the lights and air conditioning for us. It seems there aren't that many visitors these days, which is strange given the number of interesting artifacts still housed there. I say 'still', as in 2004 a number of these interesting artifacts were stolen, so now in between the vases and mummies there are giant 'wanted' photos of the missing pieces.

Unsurprisingly, one section that was left well alone by the thieves was the mummy exhibit. This consisted of a number of skulls, skeletons and fully intact mummies buried by pre-Incan and Incan societies. The burial customs and cold dry climate of Peru are perfect for preserving bodies, so many of the mummies still had skin, hair and fingernails. One had awesome dreadlocks.

From the museum we caught another Tico out to Huacachina – a quick 5km away from Ica. Almost as soon as you get out of town, huge sand dunes rise up out of the desert like waves. It's probably all in my head, but I could have sworn you could see them moving, shifting shape and creeping towards the city. The road that wound around them down into the oasis town was swallowed up in parts by the sands.

Huacachina is definitely ON the gringo trail. As we pulled into town, we heard the straining sounds of Liam Gallagher coming from a nearby bar (Oasis – get it?), and every couple of minutes we were offered sand boarding, 4x4 rides or pizza. The first two options seemed a bit too much like hard work in the desert heat, so we settled for option 3; pizza, in a nice bar by the side of the lake. The town is made up of a collection of restaurants, bars and hostels crowded around the oasis with their backs to the dunes. Unfortunately for some reason the lake smells of urine, so after a quick lunch we left and headed off in search of booze at one of the many pisco distilleries in the area.

The first bodega (Spanish for winery) we went to was shut, but our taxi driver 'knew a place' and drove us out into the sticks to find it. We drove about 20 minutes out of town, down dusty roads through mud brick villages and bone dry fields. Lots of wild dogs and suspicious locals. We were getting just a little bit nervous about our destination when we arrived at a small but well run bodega.

Pisco is made from grapes that are harvested once a year in March, so whilst we were able to try a range of spirits, the actual distillery wasn't running. Even if we had been in season, the actual modern distillery is shut to the public – instead we got to see the traditional stone press and still. Nonetheless, the process was fascinating. Grapes used to be juiced by foot and wooden press, and the resultant liquid poured into amphorae that were left out in the sun to ferment. The strange shape of these jars enabled the sediment to settle out of the liquid as well as providing a solid base to withstand the frequent Peruvian earthquakes (more of which later). Having fermented for a couple of weeks, the mildly alcoholic liquid was poured into a giant stone pot still and heated to distill and produce the finished pisco. This was definitely the most rustic distillery I've seen, and you can taste this roughness in the finished liquid. Sarah and I tried the full range of piscos and wines from the bodega, and were beginning to sway a little by the time we piled into the cab to go home. Our favourite was a pisco known locally as 'Baby maker' – due to the effect it has on the local population 9 months after its release each year.

After the afternoon drinking we decided to have an early night; however it wasn't quite as restful as we had hoped. We both woke up at 3.45 to find our entire room shaking from side to side. Earthquake! We jumped out of bed, and remembering our earthquake survival skills from TV, ran to stand under the doorway. Retrospectively, I realised this would have been a more effective response had I put some clothes on first. As it was, I was starting to consider having to make a nude escape into the street when the shaking stopped. I quickly fell back to sleep, leaving Sarah awake for the rest of the night to worry about aftershocks and watch BBC News 24 for “breaking news” of the earthquake. Luckily there were none, and no mention on the news either. In the taxi to the bus station the following morning the cabbie casually told us that it was only a 5.7 and that it had hit Chincha, 100km north of Ica. No-one was badly hurt, and due to cleverly shaped amphorae no pisco was spilt either.

We were a little trepidatious about journeying to Lima: the Lonely Planet is filled with stories about muggings and unsafe streets, and almost every entry about a museum is followed by “get here in a taxi from.....” As a precaution, we'd opted to stay in the affluent suburb of Miraflores, about 7km from the city centre. Our hostel was run by a lovely family and their dog Perdi, who took an instant shine to James: on several occasions during our 2 night stay I had to prise James away from playing fetch with a marble with the dog in the corridor. I think he's missing Blacky.

Tired after our early flight from Santiago, we decided to hang out in Miraflores for the day. We had lunch in a packed local cafe. Menu del dia = 2 courses and a drink for the princely sum of £1.60. Towards the end of the meal the elderly guy at the next table leaned over and starting talking to us in perfect English: turned out he had been married to an Englishwoman and lived in New York for years, retiring only a couple of years earlier to his native Peru. He was very proud of his neighbourhood, and told us all about his local community centre that organised weekly trips for him and his fellow retirees. It was at this point we started to relax, and thought that perhaps we might enjoy our stay here......

After a little nap, I was keen to see something of the 'local sights' so we caught a cab to the Museo de la Nación, which according to the guidebook was a 'treasure trove' of pre-Incan artefacts. We arrived just half an hour before closing time, but as it turned out this was enough: the seven storey building was almost totally empty! Restoration work is apparently underway, although from the looks of things it'll be a long time before the place is up and running again. There were a couple of temporary exhibitions open, but it was a slightly surreal experience wandering around the concrete edifice trying to find them – no one seemed to want to point out the way. Eventually on the sixth floor we found an exhibition: a photographic retrospective of the horrendous violence which Peru saw during the 1980s as a result of the Shining Path, a Maoist-communist terrorist organisation led by university professor Abimael Guzmán. I think BBC News has been sheltering me for the last 27 years as many of the images we saw were horrific.

Sobered as a result of this experience, the next day we headed into the city proper. We decided to brave the bus, which was a pretty intense experience. Lima appears to be overrun with competing bus companies offering cheap transport around the various districts. As a result, the companies all vie for the custom of passing pedestrians: as well as drivers, each bus has a conductor who hangs out of the door of the bus, shouting the destinations and encouraging anyone and everyone to climb on board. There was a lot of crazy driving, lane changing and horn beeping – felt very much like being back in China or Vietnam. But we made it!

Central Lima is vast and sprawling: it's a city of 8.5m people spread out over 2,670km. It's pretty hard to get your head around. James said it reminded him a lot of Mexico City, although to me, the central squares were again pretty European in feel. The Plaza de was very impressive, surrounded by the ornate Archbishop's Palace, the Governmental Palace and the bright yellow buildings with ornate wooden balconies which appear to be something of a Lima trademark: apparently there are some 1600 of them in the capital! Fortunately all the tourists sights are clustered pretty close together, so it was a short walk to the Church of San Francisco. This church has an incredible library with books dating back to the 16th century and gorgeous curved staircases, and a mural of the Last Supper which sees Christ and his Apostles chowing down on guinea pig, a local delicacy.

But the best bit was the catacombs: open to the public since 1850, this sprawling space under the cathedral houses the remains of 25,000 people – first buried in separate plots and later just thrown into an enormous well which has bodies 10-deep. When the church opened to the public in the 1850s some bright spark decided it would be nice to to sort and arrange the top layer of bones into an attractive pattern, so today all the femurs and skulls are presented in neat little rows. It's pretty creepy.

We had lunch at Norky's, a local fast-food eaterie which was packed with families enjoying a Sunday meal together. It was here that we discovered that Peruvians love to eat: a meal for four consists of two whole chickens, an enormous plate of chips and a bottle of the local delicacy, Inca Cola. This bright yellow, super-sweet liquid tastes a bit like limeade but is the drink of choice here: a quick survey of the room showed bottles of Inca Cola outnumbered regular Coca Cola at least 3:1. It's no wonder that Coke bought the brand in 1999. Allegedly Inca Cola is soon to be sold in Europe, although we can't really see it taking off. We tried to order just a snack, but even my 'lighter option' chicken and salad was enough to feed about 3 people....

We were on guard throughout our time in the centre of town, although other than James being offered cocaine (I blame the beard) we had no problems. Heading to Lima's Modern Art Museum was a bit of an experience though: situated in a park surrounded by a high iron fence, we had to ask permission to enter from an armed guard who took his job very seriously. Clearly we made the grade as we were allowed in, but there were many locals who were left outside. The MALI was another stunning building, and we really enjoyed the exhibit about Gordon Matta-Clarke, a slightly unhinged American who in the 70s used derelict buildings as his canvas, knocking giant holes in their ceilings and walls and recording it all on film.

Our last morning in Lima was spent at the Huaca Pucllana, a pre-Inca site founded by the Lima tribe and allegedly used as a temple to worship the gods of the moon and the sea. It is currently being 'excavated' although 'rebuilt' seems a more appropriate description: allegedly only 30% of the site has been reconstructed but it looked so perfect, we found that hard to believe. Apparently the temple site was neglected until the early 90s, at which point it was being used as venue for drug dealing, prostitution and even dirt-bike competitions. Of course more recently the government has started taking the many Peruvian ruins more seriously (because ruins = tourists = money). It was well worth a visit, and has definitely whetted our appetites for the Inca Trail!